{"id":2338,"date":"2011-12-11T22:32:59","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T03:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=2338"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:20","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:20","slug":"year-end-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2011\/12\/year-end-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Year-End Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been working on reprogramming my Mountain City Arts site, and so I have not had a lot of energy to put into the blog right now.\u00a0 That means it&#8217;s a great time to update some of my old posts.\u00a0 A few of you may remember a few of these.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=478\"><em>Cascade<\/em><\/a>: I took Procter &amp; Gamble to task for allowing defective dishwasher detergent to reach consumers and then making excuses for it.\u00a0 After my post, I went to the library and looked up what Consumer Reports had to say.\u00a0 They recommended &#8220;Finish&#8221; All-in-One Tablets on the basis of price and performance, and that&#8217;s what we have been using since.\u00a0 We are very satisfied with the results.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=82\">Grrrr&#8230;ate<\/a><\/em>:\u00a0 This was my rant about a persistent telemarketer.\u00a0 They never called again.\u00a0 My threat to bring in the State Attorney General must have scared them off.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"..\/?p=702\">Write-A-ChecTV<\/a><\/em>:\u00a0  This was the post where I promised to get rid of DirecTV as a result  of their latest rate increase.\u00a0 Guess what.\u00a0 Now we&#8217;re recording  episodes of <em>Pawn Stars<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=152\"><em>TSA: We Have Air Security Down Pat (or is it Pat Down)<\/em><\/a>:\u00a0 Remember the big to-do about pat-downs and body-scanners in airport security lines?\u00a0 Like so much else in life, things that seem so important today aren&#8217;t so important a few months down the road.\u00a0 They become the nuisances you live with, like horseflies at the pond.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=1423\">Whence Angry Perturbations<\/a><\/em>: In this essay, co-written by Wordsworth, I lamented the uncivility, anger and hatred expressed by anonymous internet commenters.\u00a0 I have since come across several articles expressing the same concerns, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/life\/roiphe\/2011\/12\/what_s_wrong_with_angry_commenters_.html\">this one<\/a> from Slate.\u00a0 But I am glad to report one case where this nuisance is finally being addressed, if only because of its financial impact.\u00a0 The <em>Asheville Citizen-Times, <\/em>one of the newspapers cited in my post, now requires its commenters to have Facebook accounts and post comments under their Facebook identities.\u00a0 Although no substitute for an actively moderated forum, at least this is a sign someone is aware there&#8217;s a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been working on reprogramming my Mountain City Arts site, and so I have not had a lot of energy to put into the blog right now.\u00a0 That means it&#8217;s a great time to update some of my old &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2011\/12\/year-end-update\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2338"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28396,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338\/revisions\/28396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}